Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) is raising questions about why someone who threatened his family isn’t being prosecuted at the federal level.
The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana declined to prosecute a man who left threatening voicemails to Banks's family in April 2023. While Aaron Thompson was sentenced to two years of probation by the local district attorney in Indiana , threats against members of Congress are usually handled by the U.S. attorney general’s office, as it is a violation of federal law.
"When Capitol Police referred the criminal case against Aaron Thompson to the U.S. Attorney for Northern District of Indiana, they declined to prosecute despite clear evidence that Thompson violated federal law," Banks wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland in December.
Banks released the letter following Garland’s recent op-ed in which he said he did not stand for political threats or violence.
“We investigate and prosecute violations of federal law — nothing more, nothing less,” Garland wrote.
“I have no doubt that you, as a husband and father yourself, would do anything to protect your family, but I want to know why you have refused to protect mine,” Banks wrote.
Banks shared some of the threats that Thompson made to him in phone calls to Banks's congressional office. Thompson also reportedly told Banks he was a gun owner in the messages.
“Here’s the choice. Your daughters grow up without their dad or you grow old without your daughters,” Thompson allegedly said. “Boom, boom, you pick.”
“Three daughters. Hey, hey, hey, three bullets, hey, hey, hey, one wife, yay. Oh yeah, yeah, we'll give her two bullets," Thompson said in one voicemail, according to the letter.
The Department of Justice said in a statement that it does not consider party affiliation when weighing whether to prosecute suspects who make threats to politicians.
“The Department investigates threats to public officials regardless of their party affiliation, and we have prosecuted multiple cases of threats made to both Republican and Democratic Members of Congress," a DOJ spokesperson said. "The Attorney General has told Congress that he views threats to public officials as threats to our democracy and the Department will continue to treat them as such.”
The spokesperson pointed to more than a dozen instances of the DOJ pursuing prosecutions of threats made to Republicans, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Clay Higgins (R-LA).
Christopher Podlesnik of Wyoming was, for example, prosecuted by a U.S. attorney and sentenced by a judge to 18 months in prison after he made threats on Jan. 28, 2021, to Gaetz and Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and John Barrasso (R-WY).
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Thompson, the suspect in Banks's case, pleaded guilty in October to a Level 6 felony and a Class B misdemeanor for the repeated threatening phone calls. Thompson told U.S. Capitol Police he was intoxicated at the time and made the threats because he disagreed with Banks politically.
Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.
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